How to Find a Canadian Employer for a Work Visa Using LMIA Lists

You can find a Canadian employer for a work visa through the official LMIA lists on Canada’s Open Government Portal — they name companies that have already gone through a labour market impact assessment for foreign hires and know how the process works.

In short

• LMIA lists are published by ESDC on the Open Government Portal — they contain the employer’s name, the number of approved positions, and the occupation.
• Download files for at least the last 2–3 years: an archive going back to 2005 is useless for finding a currently active employer.
• The gap between the declared quota and the number already hired shows a company’s real remaining openings.
• Employers with a personal name in their name are excluded from the lists — for example, elder-care agencies and nanny services.
• Data for the current year is always incomplete: only the previous, closed yearly period can be considered complete.

What LMIA lists are and why they help you find an employer

An LMIA (Labour Market Impact Assessment) is the assessment a Canadian employer must pass to get the right to hire a worker from abroad. Lists with the results of these assessments are published by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) on Canada’s Open Government Portal.

The lists name employers who already received a positive decision on a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) to hire someone from abroad. This is not the same as an issued work visa: the decision on a work permit is made separately by Canada’s immigration authority (IRCC), and not every approved position ends in an actual hire. That’s exactly what makes these lists useful for a job search: this isn’t a random sample of companies, but specific employers who are already willing to hire foreign workers and know how to handle the paperwork for a work visa.

Each list file contains the employer’s name, along with how many people and in which occupations were approved for that employer under the LMIA. This data lets you see which employers actually hired workers from abroad and in which occupation — and that’s the basis of the whole method of job hunting through LMIA lists.

How to download LMIA lists for the period you need

1. Open the section of Canada’s Open Government Portal dedicated to the Labour Market Impact Assessment — it holds tables for each year as a separate file.
2. Don’t pull data from the very start of record-keeping: it began in 2005, and an archive that old is useless for finding a currently active employer.
3. Download tables for at least the last 2 years, ideally 3 — this gives you a list of employers who hired workers from abroad recently.
4. Load each yearly file separately: the site doesn’t merge them into one document, so you’ll need to combine them by hand before sorting.

Keep in mind a methodology change: through the end of 2023, LMIAs issued only for permanent residence (PR-only) were excluded from the statistics, and starting in April 2024 they began to be included. Older data was not recalculated retroactively, so comparing files from different periods directly requires accounting for this shift.

Each table is a plain Excel file: downloading is free and no registration is required.

How to sort the employer list by your occupation and province

1. Open each downloaded file separately — every LMIA list is stored as its own standalone file; there’s no combined database for all years.
2. Sort the table by your occupation title — this gives you a list of employers who recently hired people from abroad specifically in that occupation.
3. Check the province column — the list shows which province each employer is located in, which is useful if you already have a region preference, or the opposite: a region that doesn’t work for your future immigration plans.
4. Note the table’s structure: besides occupation and province, the list shows the company name and the number of LMIAs done for that position.

Some companies in the list appear under a legal name like “1234567 Ltd” — in reality they may operate under a different brand, and you won’t be able to find them by that name.

Some companies in the list appear under a legal name like “1234567 Ltd” — in reality they may operate under a different brand, and you won’t be able to find them by that name.

How to tell how many openings an employer still has

In the LMIA table, the numbers show the employer’s stated need, not a guarantee of an open position today. For example, a company applies for 10 truck drivers and 10 welders at once — that’s the number of positions it declared to the government as a labour shortage within Canada.

Next, you need to check how many of those positions are already filled. In an example from the list, a company declared a need for 10 welders but had hired eight by the time the data was published — leaving two openings.

Companies like that are worth flagging first: the gap between the declared quota and the number already hired is exactly the chance the whole list is worth studying for.

the gap between the declared quota and the number already hired is exactly the chance the whole list is worth studying for

How to write to an employer from the LMIA list

1. Copy the company name from your sorted list and paste it into Google — this is how you find the employer’s official website.
2. On the site, look for a “Contact Us” or HR section — that’s most likely where to send your message, since there’s no separate address for LMIA-related inquiries.
3. In your message, mention that you noticed the company recently hired workers from abroad in your occupation — this shows you worked with the list deliberately rather than mass-emailing at random.
4. Add a short cover letter: your work experience, years in the field, key skills in your occupation, and that you want to relocate to Canada.
5. Attach your resume and send the message.

Then move on to the next company on the list — following the same routine: find the site through Google, locate the HR or Contact Us section, write a message mentioning hiring in your occupation, attach your resume. The more companies from the list you work through, the higher your chance of getting a response.

How to write to an employer from the LMIA list

• Company name from the sorted listrequiredpaste it into Google to find the official website
• Contact Us or HR section on the company siterequiredthere’s no separate address for LMIA-related inquiries
• Mention that the company hired in your occupationrequiredshows the message wasn’t sent out at random
• Cover letterrequiredwork experience, years in the field, key skills, intent to relocate to Canada
• Resumerequiredattach it to the message before sending
• Move on to the next company on the listfollowing the same routine

Who this method suits and why companies get a labour market assessment

LMIA lists are useful only for people who are abroad and planning to come to Canada on a work visa. If someone already lives in Canada — with an open work permit, permanent resident status, or citizenship — the employer doesn’t need to go through the process described in these lists. It’s specifically for hiring from abroad.

Canada’s government compiles the lists themselves for record-keeping, but the value for a job seeker isn’t in the numbers — it’s in the company that made it onto the register. Such a company has already received a positive labour market assessment decision from Service Canada and has already filed paperwork proving it couldn’t find a worker within the country. A separate step remains: the decision on the work permit, which is made by Canada’s immigration authority (IRCC). In other words, the employer already knows the whole process of bringing someone in from abroad in practice — unlike a company that has never done this before.

Keep in mind: the list is deliberately incomplete — it excludes all employers whose name includes a personal name (for example, elder-care agencies or nannies). If your occupation is tied to employers like these, look for them directly rather than relying only on the list.

the list is deliberately incomplete — it excludes all employers whose name includes a personal name

That’s what turns the list from a statistical sample into a ready-made database of target employers: there’s no need to convince them to figure out immigration procedures — they’ve already been through it.

Why the most recent year’s data in LMIA lists is incomplete

The 2024–2025 file shows more employers than the 2026 file — the 2024–2025 statistics are already closed and cover the full year. As of 2026, the statistics are still being collected: the file has data for roughly the first half of the year, and the remaining months haven’t been added yet.

This doesn’t mean the current year’s list is useless or was compiled incorrectly — employers simply keep applying for labour market assessments, and their number in the file will grow as the statistics get updated. Only the 2024–2025 period can be considered complete and final.

Frequently asked questions

What should I do if an employer from the LMIA list doesn’t reply to my message

There’s no single rule, but the method relies on volume: the more companies from the list you work through, the higher your chance of getting even one response. No reply from one company doesn’t mean the list is useless — move on to the next employer using the same routine: find the site through Google, locate the HR section, send a message mentioning hiring in your occupation, attach your resume.

Can I use LMIA lists if I don’t have a specific occupation, just general experience

The lists are sorted precisely by occupation title, so the method is built for applicants with a specific occupation as listed in the table. If your occupation is worded too broadly or doesn’t appear in the list, you won’t be able to find target employers through it — it’s worth narrowing your wording to match what actually appears in the table’s occupation column.

Is it worth writing to an employer if all their LMIA positions are already filled

Technically you can, but the method relies on the gap between the declared quota and the number already hired — that gap is what counts as a real chance. If all positions are filled, the company had no declared labour shortage for that role as of the data’s publication date, so it makes more sense to prioritize employers who still have openings left.

What should I do if a company in the LMIA list is listed under an unclear name like “1234567 Ltd”

That kind of name is the legal entity’s registered name, and the company may operate under a different brand, so a direct search on the table name often turns up nothing. In that case, try finding the company by industry, province, and occupation from the same row of the table, or skip it and move on to the next entry on the list.